Prospect was there first
Yesterday a new magazine hit the news-stands in France – well it didn’t actually make it as far as my local news-agent down here but I am sure it made it to the big towns. Its name is XXI and the main interest to this blog is that its editorial policy is to treat subjects in depth, with long articles and without advertising – so very different from what is called here the zapping médiatique généralisé. In other words readers of Prospect Magazine will surely recognise a kindred spirit. Indeed XXI is unashamedly modelled on Atlantic Monthly and the New Yorker – in many ways like Prospect. Had people in France heard of Prospect, doubtless it would have been added to XXI’s progenitors.
There are of course differences. As reported in Rue 89 XXI comes out only four times a year, runs to 200 pages and costs 15€. It includes photo-documentaries and strip cartoons. The first print-run is 40,000 copies – from memory higher than Prospect’s.
The first issue carries fully 67 pages on Russia – different aspects including tracing the career of Anna Politkovskaya and looking at Russian capitalism. Apparently most articles run to about 12 pages of single-spaced Word, or about 7,000 words – where again from memory Prospect’s long articles run to a little less although some, like my article on the fight against corruption in France, ran to about 8,500.
Although I doubt it will be easy to find copies of XXI in the UK (any more than you can find Prospect in France) diligent readers of Prospect need not feel out of the loop as far as coverage of France is concerned. I notice from Rue 89’s synopsis of the first issue that there are articles on OGM crops, the French phenomenon of civil disobedience and Michel Onfray – all three of which have been covered in Prospect’s France Profonde column. Don’t forget, you read it first in Prospect.
Rue 89 also tells us that another in depth magazine is planned to appear in France this summer. There is even a third, slightly different but very well produced serious quarterly magazine called, irrationally, Mook, which appeared just before Christmas and will also be quarterly. I shall be writing about Mook in more detail later. Mook is published by one of France’s best-known editors, Henry Dougier who founded Autrement, a series of books which looks at France and the rest of the world autrement. The aim of his new brain-child aim is to look at aspects of France which are working well (not the obvious things but off-radar stuff) and aims to bring out an English edition later this year (not an English translation, but its own, independent edition) which may involve your dedicated correspondent: I go to Paris on Monday for discussions.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:21 am
If there is a paper on Michel Onfray in XXI then it’s certainly a depth magazine!
When will the media, good or bad, but especially if they intend to be good as this magazine intends to be , understand that the idols of the marketplace of ideas are not necessarily the best commentators of the : if one wants to do something new, why on earth do people fall back on the old croonies among the intellectuals ? Lack of imagination, but let’s hope there is a cure to this illness.